Bradford City Academy & Youth Development

I met Alan Nevison (Academy Manager) yesterday at the training ground.

Alan is a great guy with an enormous passion for Bradford City. His enthusiasm rubs off on you when he speaks.

He was coaching the Academy kids at Manchester United but he's a City fan. His dad was in the player's lounge and he was sitting in the stand on the day of the fire. As he told me, "I'm here because City's part of my blood."

Here's a rundown of our Academy:

• Academy's are rated from Cat 1 to Cat 4.
• Most Premier clubs and some Championships are Cat 1
• The main difference relates to the number of coaches. A Cat 1 will have over 50 full-time coaches. A massive cost
• If you have a Cat 1, you have more funding from Premier League from their 'Solidarity Payments' - but you have to contribute more as a club on a pro-rata basis. We could never contemplate this because, beyond the coaches, you need facilities like more 4G pitches etc. which cost £400k!
• The 'Solidarity Payments' stem from a deal done by the Premier League to guarantee more Academy funding at a price... Set payments were put in place to allow bigger clubs to poach young talent for modest sums. This makes it harder to get the sort of deals we've had previously for the likes of Fabian Delph and Andre Wisdom for example
• To put this into context, Huddersfield has moved to Cat 4 and now they only coach from under 16's up because they don't see any benefit in coaching kids 8-16.
• City are Cat 3. We coach from under 8's to under 18's with 13 coaches across the age groups
• Our Academy has 150 kids. Kids who are good are moved up age groups
• They are accessed on talent and body development. You may have a 12-year-old who is a late developer in body size and one who is 5 inches taller who is ahead in body, but not chronologically. When they get to 17/18 it will equal out and they consider all of this when looking at talent and putting them into aged teams
• Beneath this, we have 4 Elite Development Centres (DC's) at Southfield Grange, Ilkley, Dewsbury and in Seacroft
• There are 350 kids in the DC's. They all train and wear the City kit.
• These have a DC coordinator and more local coaches running them
• The aim of these is to create links with local schools and clubs to provide a channel to the Development Centres
• We have 8 scouts watching schools and local clubs. They will have the watched Alpha United FC players playing for the club and in their school's teams many times
• Players who are identified as having potential are picked up by scouts and recommended to either the Development Centres or the Academy
• Each year, they hold DC Select days to trial DC players and other local talents to bring into the Academy
• The Academy brings in players from beyond Bradford. There is a lad who lives in Leeds who gets the train and was a Leeds fan. Alan said he saw his dad down at Valley Parade sheepishly buying tickets for City.
• At 16 players are offered BTEC in Sports Science courses. This is where our links to the School become a big draw, even against top tier clubs.
• The BTEC is equivalent to 3 A-Levels - For the majority of players who don't make the grade they have a pathway to University with many getting unconditional offers on sporting degrees due to the course and links to football
• We also house out of area talent in the school 6th form boarding residency.
• To put this into context, the fees to attend and board at a school like Woodhouse Grove are considerable. It's a magnificent school with beautiful grounds and brilliant facilities. Many parents are amazed at the opportunity this offers for their kids
• From there, at 18 the best kids are offered their first pro contract, or released

The aim is to develop players who progress into the first team. Alan identified several real talents that he felt had everything they need to make it.

There are also players that are watched by other clubs who will move on. He said one boy will have been watched 20 times by scouts by one club before an offer will come in. These deals are done regularly but go unreported (they are minors). Because of the solidarity deal, clubs are powerless to stop players moving. Each kid can only be signed from year to year.

When interest comes in from more than one club, our job is to try and create a dutch auction to broker a deal beyond the prescribed minimums to include sell on's and appearance deals etc.

I spent 3 hours with Alan exploring ways to increase funding and to extend the reach of the DC's. In simple terms, the wider the reach, the more likely we are to find more talent which will, in turn, help us on the pitch.

Thanks.